Scripture

When Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, His mother asked him: “Why have you done this…” Jesus’ reply was his first spoken words in the Gospel: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Lk 2:49). Twenty-one years later, when Jesus had drained the cup of his bitter Passion, He spoke His last recorded words: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit.” In between those two extremities as recorded in the Gospel, the mission of Jesus centered on showing us the Father. He came for one purpose and one purpose only: that is, to bring us back to God the Father.

Looking at all revealed truth in Holy Scripture through the prism of this reality, in both the Old and New Testaments everything takes on a luster and luminosity that satisfy and enrich every level of our being. All of our ills, personal and corporate, can be traced back to the fact that we are away from the Father. We are more or less whole to the degree that we return back to live in the arms of the Father. Strong words? Let us see.

In his encyclical Dives in Misericordia, Blessed John Paul II brings all these truths into special focus. At the center is the story of the prodigal son (Lk 15). Having left his father and squandered his inheritance, the prodigal son turns back to the source of all that had been good in his life: his father’s benevolence. Along with the prodigal son, therefore, we are all fugitives from the home of our merciful Father; hence, this encyclical is about us. If we studied and prayed reflecting on that encyclical alone, we would once again see that the history and future of the human race is indeed a journey back to the Father’s Heart. This is what Scripture is all about.

Can we not call it the Great Circle of Love? That is, leaving our home in Eden at the dawn of creation as related in Genesis, onto the great gathering of God’s people in the Book of Revelation, for the family meal at the Heavenly banquet. The very words of Revelation promise this: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rv 3:20).

There is a Heart and a heartbeat, and we encounter them in the very pulse of the Word of God: “You will be My people and I will be your God.” This heartbeat cries out to each and every person throughout all the ages. Our Triune God is the first Family. God created Adam and Eve as a family, to have His family close to His Heart. That is the story of our salvation history.

REMEMBERING ~~~~

On the shores of Babylon

I weep for Eden.

My mother and father walked there

hand in hand with Love.

The body they gave me

became a sheath holding the memories

of Paradise and the Bosom of God.

Each day this flaming sword

cuts and burns through

the sinews of my will

creating a space for a new life.

A new Eden ~ where His

Divine Will becomes the New Paradise

and where, in the cool of the evening,

I walk with my God singing the Songs of Zion

~~~~~ to the Nuptials.

THE WORD OF GOD

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but ou have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are childern of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rm 8: 15-17).